Teleportraiture is a series of small, intimate oil portraits, painted from live poses, by remote video chat, via Skype, Google Hangout, or iChat. Janet Bruesselbach launched Teleportraiture in 2011 as a Kickstarter campaign. The subject of each portrait is a backer of the campaign, or a loved one volunteered by the backer.

Janet is pleased to announce that the 45 resulting paintings, completed between October 2011 and February 2012, will be displayed in a 2-week gallery exhibition in New York City – more precisely, in downtown Long Island City. Attendance at the opening reception on Friday, May 18th, will also be possible remotely through a simultaneous online video chat.

The pricing and experimentalism of the series made the fine art portrait experience open to people who had never before considered commissioning one. The subjects include the artist’s friends and relatives as well as people met only through the campaign, and only online. Some posed from the other side of the world, others from the same room, all framed by their computer screens. The ages of subjects ranged from under a year old to septuagenarian. Many subjects had never used video chat before. The project reflects a moment when a flexible technology is still finding its social niche.

Janet has been working as a portrait artist since she was 15, and was further trained at RISD and the New York Academy of Art. Her painting is traditional but fresh and lively, and feeds on the energy of interaction with a live subject. Paintings reflect on both the artist’s personality and her subjects’. Yet as artifacts of sittings, they are not quite realistic, and often contain traces of awkwardness in every level of communication.

Some of the portraits remain available for purchase, as are a limited number of catalogs. The artist will be working in the gallery and will be available for live video chat Monday (21, 29), Tuesday (22, 30), and Thursday (24), from 12-6pm EST. The gallery is also open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 12-6pm. To commission a portrait during this or another time, to schedule a viewing, and for any other inquiries, contact: [email protected] (310) 617-3366